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The title above reflects a dominant social theme that can be seen to be permeating much political banter, especially in the latter half of 2015. There’s lots of fear mongering about China’s alleged cyber threat against the United States. Meanwhile, The Intercept is reporting that they obtained top secret documents showing the “CIA Campaign to Steal Apple’s Secrets.”

By targeting essential security keys used to encrypt data stored on Apple’s devices, the researchers have sought to thwart the company’s attempts to provide mobile security to hundreds of millions of Apple customers across the globe. Studying both “physical” and “non-invasive” techniques, U.S. government-sponsored research has been aimed at discovering ways to decrypt and ultimately penetrate Apple’s encrypted firmware. This could enable spies to plant malicious code on Apple devices and seek out potential vulnerabilities in other parts of the iPhone and iPad currently masked by encryption.

The US government is literally researching how to hack into the mobile devices of millions across the world. This is remarkable, upon reflection. The claim promoted by many is that the US government protects our liberties, has its armed forces fighting for our freedoms, is working to challenge the world’s greatest threats to peace, and all the rest of the propaganda. But this is literally and substantially not true. In fact, the opposite is literally and substantially true. The US government is the great breacher of liberties, the criminal enterprise that aggresses against our persons and property, the world’s great threat to peace, etc.

“Terrorists” around the world living in caves are not doing these things that the Intercept is reporting. The US government is.

And yet the latter tries to make us fear the former.

Our enemy, the enemy of the people, the enemy of peace and prosperity and security, the great threat to progress, and the reason why “we can’t have nice things” is the state itself.

Whenever you see a politician expressing the need to crack down on cyber threats, you should remember that the US government is the cyber threat.

Eve blamed the snake and the US Federal Government blames China, Russia, Assad, ISIS, and so on. But of these, only the US Government has aggressed us.

C.Jay Engel
Editor and creator of The Reformed Libertarian. Spends his day as an investment advisor and helping people with their financial strategies. Living in Northern California with his wife, he writes on everything from politics to theology and from culture to economic theory. You can send an email to reformedlibertarian@gmail.com